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Beckett, who lives in Dallas, said he has been watching the Dodgers play on TV,

I'm not the only one that pictures Beckett sitting in a barcalounger, belly protruding from a Red Sox shersey two sizes too small, with a Miller Lite in one hand and a drumstrick in the other, watching Dodgers games on TV?

John Clarkson was ahead of Kershaw through age 25 too, but you have to go back even further for him. If Kershaw throws fewer than 1100 innings in the next two seasons, his 30's should be better than Clarkson's were.

Nice accomplishment, but still a pretty silly stat. There are plenty of pitchers (or hitters if you pick a different stat) who At Some Point In Their Careers were better in one stat (like ERA) than eveyrone else who Completed their careers.

He is also the only active pitcher with an ERA lower than 3, sans Mariano.

Anyone who is in the same general vicinity as Pedro Martinez, Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove and Tom Seaver might or might not be the best ever, which is awesome to contemplate. Also Smokey Joe Williams had a career ERA of 2.28 but you all probably weren't counting pre-1947 blacks.

Is this an "at age 25" thing? In the 2003-04 offseason, 12 years into his career, Pedro Martinez's ERA was 2.57.

No. It was just the statement of a fact, one that I found fascinating when I first heard it (and unlike SG's comment, has nothing to do with age). Before I heard it, had anyone asked me who had the lowest career ERA of any starter who debuted in the last 99 years, I never would have guessed Clayton Kershaw.

It doesn't make him better than Pedro or Tom Seaver or any number of other pitchers. I merely found it pretty damn interesting (and just another way of noting how good he's been thus far). I thought others might too.

pitcher1 was 25 years old, pitched in a hitter-friendly AL park, and this season was in the peak of the steroid era
pitcher2 was 20 years old, pitched in an NL pitcher's park and this season was in the mid 80s
pitcher3 was 25 years old, pitched in a neutral AL park, and this was within the last 5 years. yes, this was a slightly lower era+, but just wanted to include it for context.

of these 3, only 1 went on to have a hall-of-fame career (pitcher 3 isn't exactly on track for the hall of fame, but he's 29 this year, and well, who knows).

age-wise, yes, this is a historic season. there are 6 other seasons that exceed his current ERA+ at ages 25 or younger, but they are all before 1915.

but take age out of the equation, and this season is only 30th in ERA+, 18th in WHIP, 10th in h9, and 97th in ERA.

and as for future impact, of the 38 seasons of an era+ 200 or greater, they were thrown by 27 different individuals.

yep, we know Kershaw isn't the greatest pitcher ever, no one said he was. What he is however, is awesome. If you need to throw out names like Seaver, Pedro, Grove and Johnson to point out a few guys who were better, well that's just damn impressive.
Maybe if he keeps this up for another 10 years or 2000+ innings the conversation could get interesting.